Email: from Trish

In 1981 my daughter, Fiona, was studying Australian History at school. I had recently been given a photograph of Patrick Fogarty with his wife Catherine Egan and their five children. I was not sure of the exact date of the photo but knew it was between 1900 and 1904. The eldest child, James, who died in 1900 is missing from the photo and Catherine had died by June 1904. I can tell from the ages of the other children that it was taken not long after 1900. As the family didn't have much money I wonder whether they were prompted to have a family photo taken after losing their first child. The little boy standing on the right of the picture is my grandfather, Edward Fogarty. The photograph was given to me by the daughter of the little girl at her mother's knee.

Fiona took this photo to school and the teacher asked if I would go and speak to the class about family research. Well off I went, wondering why I let myself in for these things!! I mentioned both Fogarty and Egan names but only spoke for about 20 minutes and there were a few questions. I might add here that there were 730 girls in this school and I spoke to a group of 32.

That evening I had a phone call from a woman (the mother of one of the students) who said that she thought she was related to me as they had just been given a family bible and there were both Fogarty and Egan names in it. I said that these were quite common Irish names and I knew all of my family. My Mum's family had always stayed close so I knew or knew of all of the Fogartys. I knew also that Catherine Egan had died young and contact seemed to have been lost for the most part between the two families. At this stage I didn't know how many Egans had come to Australia.

Tony was told when given the bible that Egan was a family name but he wasn't quite sure where it fitted and he had no knowledge of a Christian name. It turned out that Tony is descended from Patrick Egan who died young leaving behind a wife and three daughters. The wife remarried, and the only surviving daughter married (she became Mary Jane O'Brien). The name Egan in this family was lost and over the generations, forgotten. Mary Jane had one daughter, Dorothy and she married a Cecil Trask.

There seemed more information in this bible on my family which I found hard to fathom. Later, I discovered that when Catherine Egan died, her only daughter, Kate, went to live with Mary Jane. This little girl, Kathleen, was the same age as Mary Jane's daughter, Dorothy. So some of my Fogarty/Egan family had close contact with Patrick Egan's branch right up to 1950's.

I have a second cousin who is also interested in family and when I told him of my discovery he immediately said, "Oh, Ma and Dorrie Trask, I'd forgotten about them, your grandfather always kept in touch with them."

My grandfather had a very, very strong family feeling, for want of a better word. He always kept in contact with any family connections. Unfortunately he died before I started any research.

To get back to the bible, there were a number of little notes and cards that had been written between the Egan cousins and there was a photo of Martin, my great-great grandfather and I was told that the photo of the young woman is his daughter,Catherine.

I had a few visits with Rosemary and Tony Trask and they took down everything I could give them, including my maiden name, Wellington. I gathered all their family details and we looked at photographs.

Rosemary told me that she was going to visit someone else in her family, that was a cousin on another side; she thought they would be interested. She didn't give a name and I thought no more about it.

Another phone call from a very excited friend of mine!! This friend, Anne Makin and I went to school together (the same school where both our daughters were and where I had given that original talk). We had for most our married lives lived in the same area and our children had gone to the same schools. It was Anne's mother, Mrs Makin, that Rosemary had gone to see. Of course,I had also had a long association with Mrs Makin and it was only when she noticed the Wellington that Rosemary had written after Smith that the questions started and things began to unfold.

Rosemary knew that Mrs Makin was a cousin of her husband's but had no idea where the connection was. On this visit they poured over the chart that I had drawn up. I already knew that Martin Egan had married Julia Casey. Mrs Makin knew that great-grandmother was Margaret Casey. After some research it was discovered that Patrick Egan had married Dora Casey. There was the connection! Once all of the marriage certificates were checked it was discovered that indeed these three Casey girls were sisters. The two Egan boys, Martin and Patrick had married two sisters, Julia and Dora Casey respectively. The third sister, Margaret had married Michael McGuiness. So Anne and her mother shared the same set of grandparents (a few generations back) with me.

This doesn't really have anything to do directly with the Egans of course but I think it is interesting and noteworthy for a few reasons.

Firstly, it just goes to show you never know where you can find connections. Secondly, I subsequently visited Mrs Makin, again taking photos and as we talked memories came back to her of her girlhood "and the Egans and Fogartys and McGuiness's would get together and we would set out long trestles and all bring lots of food to share". Mrs Makin died in 1997 and was nearly 80 when this meeting took place.

Lastly, over the many years that I had known Anne, she often said how much I reminded her of her sister, Margaret. I remember when I was first married, that Ann commented that I even reminded her of Margaret in the way I kept my house (whatever that meant). She never seemed able to pinpoint exactly what she saw and I came to think that perhaps there was a superficial resemblance between us which I couldn't see. Anne's family are all tall with dark eyes and Margaret is small and has blue/green eyes. I have similar colouring and am a small build so I put it down to that. When we made the discovery of our relationship I immediately thought of this and wondered after all if there is some indefinable genetic similarity

My husband and I met Vincent Egan in Sydney some years back and both commented later of a similarity in the voice between Vincent and my grandfather. Again, something hard to explain but we had noticed it independently of each other. I find this aspect of genealogy very fascinating.

One final thing, did you know that Patrick Egan and Dora Casey were the witnesses to the marriage of Mary Ann Egan and Peter Mathews ( Jacki Barber's line)? This was in Sandhurst.

Probably the last step in the saga! If you remember when I started my research I knew nothing of Egans, except that it was a family name. I had heard the names Martin and Catherine but were not really sure where they fitted. This was due, no doubt, to my great-grandmother's early death. Although members of my mother's family had visited the Fogarty farm and spoken of it often I did not know that the Egans and Fogartys lived quite near one another.

About 15 years ago, perhaps a little more,I went into the Public Record Office. This was nothing like what it is today and in fact it was just before family history became so popular. I asked to see some maps of early land selection in Inglewood (near Bendigo, for those who don't know). The attendant brought out quite large maps and spread them out before me. I was quite excited to see M. Fogarty and J. Fogarty but then my eye was caught by Martin Egan marked on three parcels of land. I assured anyone who would listen that he also belonged to me! At this stage no further info was available. But I now had a picture of the two families knowing one another, well before they were connected through the marriage of their children.

This also tied in with a story told to me by a very old aunt. She said that Jimmy Fogarty had come running home one day, saying that Tommy Egan was washing his hair in the creek. By the time the parents had arrived the child had drowned. This story was confirmed when Stephen Egan kindly sent me a swag of Egan B/D/M certificates. Here was Thomas Egan, aged 11, who had died by drowning in a waterhole in 1876. This old aunt, in her 90's was the widow of my great uncle, Mick Fogarty. Mick had always kept in touch with Peg O'Shannessy. From my memory two Egans married O'Shannessy (various spelling) but they were in two different generations. I know I have this written down somewhere. Peg's marriage is within my family line and the only reason that I mention it, is because I visited Sheila O'Shannessy (daughter of Peg) and she gave me copies of letters that were written by her mother to a niece named, Kate. I can't place her. Inglewood and Kingower are spoken of in the letters which were written in 1893/94. I also have one written to Peg from her brother, Jim, in 1917, from England. He was in the Australian army and on leave at the time. I don't know whether there is anyone interested in these.

To get back to Martin Egan and Kingower. I'm attaching the copies of Martin's application for a licence in 1870 and then for a lease or Crown Grant. To get this he had to prove that he had been living on the land and improved it while paying off his licence. I intend to see if I can get any more info on Martin as these land documents are nowhere near as comprehensive as the ones I got on Fogarty.

The original Fogarty selection was in the family until about 1948, then bought by a local family who had never lived on it and just grazed some sheep there. When I found it in 1988 there were the remains of the wattle and daub walls, quite a bit of farm machinery, an iron bedstead and various odds and ends, like bottles, a child's shoe etc. We could make out quite clearly where the house had been and also a cellar, partly caved in but with hessian bags still hanging; these apparently were kept damp for cooling. Needless to say we took lots of photos! This land is still referred by the locals as the Fogarty farm.

I took my mum to the heritage week at Inglewood a few years later. We asked about Egans and were told to go and see a man by the name of Gillespie. Note the name on the map next to Martin's land. He told us that his grandfather had eventually bought Martin's land (not sure how much). He also pointed out some land that he said was still called Egan's block. He gave us directions to what used to be more Of Martin's land and said that there was a fireplace still remaining but although we searched until it was getting dark we couldn't find it. To explore Kingower is to just fill you with doubt that anyone could have made a living there. A few years after this we spent a week-end at the Passing Cloud winery (a B&B). We were told that the winery is so named because of the extremely low rainfall . We didn't discover anything new that week-end, unfortunately.

Patricia Smith ( nee Wellington )
Great,great grandaughter of Martin Egan

Editors Note: This story was transcribed from a number of Emails sent by Patricia to members of family on the web Contact Patricia at Wello's World